In Which Sam Babysits Two Terrifying Children [PG-13]
Title: "In Which Sam Babysits Two Terrifying Children"
Fandom: Supernatural
Genre: Family, Friendship
Pairing: Destiel if you squint
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language, insufferable mini!Dean
Summary: I wrote a kid!fic about Dean and Cas and Sam and one hellish road trip. It's based off a picture.
Okay, what the ever-loving fuck?
Sam didn’t believe what he was seeing. He honestly didn’t believe it. A few minutes ago they’d been ganking some witches, and now he was standing in front of two very surly-looking children.
One of those children was wearing a leather jacket, and the other was wearing a trench coat.
“Uh, Dean? Cas?” he asked cautiously, taking a step toward the now-children and crouching so he’d be on their level.
“Sammy? What the hell is going on?” he asked in a voice that Sam hadn’t heard in years, a voice that was a good octave higher than it had been minutes ago and that had Sam biting his lips to avoid laughing his ass off. Fortunately he didn’t have to reply because Cas seemed to have it covered.
“We appear to have become children, Dean,” the tiny angel said in an unmistakably sour tone. Sam was still trying not to laugh; Cas’s vocal change was even funnier than Dean’s, possibly because he sounded so adorably soft-spoken as opposed to his usual gravelly voice.
Sam pulled out his cellphone and made to dial Bobby, but decided to access his phone’s camera first. Seriously, this moment needed to be preserved for posterity. Castiel looked up from where he’d been staring at the ground, and Dean just glared as the camera flashed. With the picture saved - possibly to be made his wallpaper later - Sam dialed their mentor.
“Hey, Bobby... We’ve got a bit of a situation here. The witches are dead, the town should be all clear now, but it’s about Dean and Castiel. Um... They’re sort of kids. Like, real ones - tiny hands and adorable but kinda creepy faces and everything.” He waited while the older hunter laughed (yeah, he was so gonna have to send Bobby the picture later) and finally caught his breath in order to tell him to get their “little idjit asses” back to South Dakota so he could take a look at them and fix this.
“Will do, Bobby. Thanks.” He hung up and sighed, running a hand through his hair as he stood and took a step back to assess the situation. He was going to have to get two miniaturized asshats to travel peacefully with him all the way from Olympia to Sioux Falls.
Was it illegal to drug children if they weren’t actually children?
Sam ushered Cas and Dean into the Impala through the driver’s side, wanting them to stay in the front seat so he could break up any fighting that might occur. (Oh, who was he kidding...he was still young enough to remember that kids and long car rides never ended well. Ever.) Castiel just stared out the window like he was seeing the world for the first time, and Dean sulked in between them because he should be the one driving.
An hour later, no more, and Sam was pulling into a Babies-R-Us and practically dragging his brother and the angel inside by the hands. He ignored Dean trying to pull away so he could look at the monster truck toys and finally got them to the aisle where they sold kiddie carriers and similar items. He picked up a package that showed a kid wearing a bright red backpack-style harness and handed it to the more well-behaved of his two “children,” walking back to the front of the store while Dean whined about wanting to find the aisle with all the “cool cars you can drive around.” The cashier tittered at him, undoubtedly amused by Dean’s making faces at Castiel who looked just as puzzled as ever.
As soon as they left the store, Sam slipped the harness on Dean. He put both kids in the car and drove away, praying that they made it to the halfway point before his brother could drive him completely insane.
Getting a motel room while holding onto a leash that was connected to a small child proved to be even weirder than getting a hotel room with your man-sized brother whom people assumed was your gay lover. The lady in the office raised her eyebrow at Sam, who was busy trying to dig in his wallet for a stolen credit card while cradling a droopy-looking Cas in one arm and keeping Dean reigned in with his leash which was wrapped around the wrist belonging to his wallet-searching hand.
He finally managed to get a room with two singles and guided Dean toward it, rolling his eyes and handing his brother the room key (who let out an exuberant “hell yeah!” because he got to open the door before walking in and setting Cas down on the nearest bed. The angel crawled up toward the pillow and flopped down with a yawn, curling up on top of the blanket as if to sleep. Sam put a squirming Dean down from where he’d been unleashing him and walked over, sitting on the edge of the bed and touching the little angel’s shoulder. Heh. Little angel.
He helped Cas out of his coat and tie - his clothes were so tiny now - and handed him a T-shirt from Dean’s duffel. Speak of the devil, his brother emerged from the bathroom complaining about the height of the toilet and wearing another of his T-shirts. He started toward the free bed, but Sam glared and pointed to the wide open space beside Cas.
“I’ve already gotten weird looks from the desk chick, Dean. There’s no way we’re sharing a bed. Now lay down and go to sleep.”
Dean gave him a sullen look, but climbed into bed and jerked the covers out from under the fully changed Castiel so he could properly cover them both. Satisfied that Dean wasn’t going to start jumping on the bed any time soon, Sam kicked off his shoes and flopped down on his own bed to get some rest.
The next morning came way too soon, Sam decided as he felt a pair of bony knees digging into his chest. He felt little fingers poking at his forehead, and opened his eyes to see Castiel staring down at him like he was some kind of test subject. He glanced around, seeing Dean standing arms crossed beside his bed, waiting for Castiel to complete his analysis.
“Well?” Dean asked, obviously impatient. Castiel just poked Sam in the forehead again and the only normal-sized member of their party realized what he was trying to do.
“I’m powerless,” Cas said, and the pout on his tiny face almost made up for the fact that his knees were doing serious damage to his ribs. Sam grabbed the kid and lifted him off, setting him down beside Dean who was staring at Sam like he’d personally broken his angel.
“Look,” Sam said and shook his head, “Could you guys just, y’know, get dressed and ready to go? You’re creeping me out with your little eyes.”
Sam gathered their belongings and packed the trunk, returning to put Dean back on his leash before leading the boys out into the world once more.
He walked ahead of Dean and Cas, not worried in the least about their ability to blend in until he overheard the following exchange going on behind him:
"It's almost too bright out..."
"Suck it up, Cas."
"Please stop poking me, Dean."
"Dean, sto--choo!"
"... Whoa, cool."
Sam was almost afraid to turn around, but from the silence he knew something had to be going on and he needed to stop it. So he turned around slowly, trying and failing to prepare himself for what he’d find.
Castiel had wings.
They were tiny, black, fluffy little things that looked like they were right out of a Party City catalog. Sam tried not to laugh as he watched the exchange happening between Dean and Cas; his brother was awestruck, eyes wide as he reached out and tugged at one of the fluffy new appendages. Castiel, on the other hand, looked downright ashamed. His face was a bright pink, eyes downcast as he tried to pull away from Dean’s inspection. Before Sam could pull Dean out of reach, his tugging had agitated Cas to the point that violence seemed to be his best option. The angel reached out and shoved Dean, who landed on his ass and looked up at Sam as if he was the one supposed to mediate this exchange.
“Jesus...” Sam groaned. It really was like dealing with two children. Granted, Dean was like a giant man-child without the interference of witches, but now he had the pint-sized cuteness to make his behavior a little more understandable. And Sam knew he really didn’t need that sort of encouragement.
He supposed Castiel’s excuse was that he had always been socially awkward and now had less physical presence (and a lot less power) to make it seem okay that he had no clue how to deal with other people.
“Cas, we don’t push people. Dean, get your ass in the car and stop messing with his wings.”
“But they’re cool--”
“They’re awful. They’re tiny--”
“They’re awesome, Cas. And fluffy.”
“They aren’t even my wings, Dean. It’s part of the enchantment.”
Their time on the road passed much the same way, with Sam occasionally considering putting one of them in the back seat so he wouldn’t have to keep reaching over and breaking up their most recent fight. But then he figured that if he was to put Dean in the back seat it would give him a lot more room to bounce around and poke at Cas, and if he was to put Cas in the back it would only encourage Dean to turn around and make trouble that way. The only solution short of sleeping pills would be to put Dean in the trunk, but he really didn’t want his pint-sized brother angry and that close to an arsenal.
Sam had thought about having kids once. Back when he was shopping for rings, thinking of proposing to Jess, he thought about how happy they could be with kids of their own. It was the kind of life he’d only ever dreamed of having for himself: a job with a nice firm, a house somewhere in a quiet suburban community, a beautiful wife, and a couple of kids.
This trip was making him rethink the “couple of kids” part.
They pulled off the road when Dean started getting unbearable and parked in front of a diner, Sam leading Cas with one hand and holding tight to Dean’s leash with the other. They sat down in a booth in their usual manner, Dean and Sam on one side and Cas on the other, and the waitress offered them a brilliant smile when she came over to take their order.
“You have such adorable boys,” she said as she regarded Dean and Cas with a look that Sam knew as the Cheek-Pinching Stare. Sam thought it best not to say “they aren’t my kids” and instead just smiled back and thanked her for the compliment, ordering a salad for himself, bacon cheeseburger sliders for Dean, and macaroni and cheese for Castiel. The three ate pretty quietly, with only Castiel’s occasional sigh at what Sam guessed was Dean kicking him under the table to break the silence.
“So, Cas... Those aren’t your wings?” he asked in as sensitive a tone as possible, since the angel seemed a little touchy about the black balls of fluff sticking out of his back.
Castiel looked disgusted as he stabbed at his mac and cheese. “No,” he said sulkily, “my wings are still on another plane. These tiny things aren’t even useful for flying.”
Sam was about to comment on the angel’s size issues when another thought struck him as more important. “So if they aren’t your wings, why do they move like they’re real?”
He was fixed with a reluctantly patient gaze as Castiel seemed to gauge whether or not that question deserved a response, but the angel’s eyes returned to his food as he spoke.
“Just because they aren’t mine doesn’t mean they aren’t real. I can feel them,” he shot a look at Dean, “and I can move them of my own free will.” Sam nodded at the explanation, pinched Dean’s arm for sticking his tongue out at Cas, and dug into his food. They still had a long way to go to get to Sioux Falls, and he wanted to make this trip as short as possible.
Of course, no road trip with children was complete without the customary hourly bathroom stops, and Sam was really grateful for once that Dean had a loud mouth and no filter; he made requests for himself and for Castiel whenever the angel got a little too squirmy for Dean’s liking. Sam was pretty sure Cas had never had to use the bathroom before, and he didn’t want to think about how that conversation went the first time the “kids” hopped out of the car and off into the bushes.
That was another thing: Dean just would not stop touching Cas. It was like watching a little boy with a girl he liked, and Sam tried to discourage the metaphorical pigtail-pulling as much as possible, even going so far as to give the two the “violence is not an acceptable way to show affection” speech. But Dean was sneaky, and sometimes he wouldn’t know until his brother was shoved forcefully into his side that anything had even transpired between the two. After a little while they just sat there staring at each other, which Sam supposed was a comforting level of normal considering the circumstances.
After checking in with Bobby and telling him they were just six or so hours out, Sam finally caved to Dean’s demands for food and pulled into the nearest roadside diner. It hadn’t occurred to him that he had possibly had it easy so far on this trip. He thought there was no easy when it came to dealing with Dean and Cas, particularly in child form.
Never had he been so wrong.
This time it was Dean who pushed Cas, and the angel either had absolutely no mojo or was surprised by the attack because he fell right back on his ass and looked up at Dean like a kicked puppy. Dean didn’t have the chance to look remorseful, because Sam had had it and reached down to scoop Cas up into his arms.
“Dammit Dean, behave yourself!” he scolded, cradling a pouting Castiel in one arm and holding tight to his brother’s leash.
“You can’t tell me what to do! Now gimme back my angel!” Dean yelled in reply, starting to tug on the leash as if to pull it from Sam’s hands. God, he hated kids. He hated kids so much. He hated Dean as a kid. He held on tight to the leash and tried not to be too embarrassed by the staring bystanders as he responded.
“Dean, Cas isn’t a commodity. And you can have him back when you -- ow, stop that!” He winced at the pain shooting through his shin, wondering how on Earth such tiny feet could do such damage. He slowly let Cas down as he went to rub at the soon to be bruised area, watching with a groan as Dean took the angel’s hand and ran off toward the door of the diner, leash trailing uselessly behind them.
Of course Cas didn’t even spare a glance over his shoulder to check if Sam was okay.
When Sam finally made it in a minute later, Dean and Cas were sitting side by side in a booth and working on one of the kids’ menus together, no pushing or shoving or wing-pulling involved. Sam breathed a sigh of relief and mentally added five percent to the server’s tip as he walked over and flopped down in the seat opposite them.
It was cute, really. He’d never gotten to see Dean be a kid, even when they were both younger. Dean had been the one who had to grow up right away; he was never allowed any of the trappings of childhood nor the innocence that often came with youth, and that made Sam’s heart ache in a really weird way. At least he’d had the chance to grow up for a few years not knowing what their dad did, and at least he’d been able to walk away and live his own life for a while. Dean had never had any of that...he’d been living in the shadow of John Winchester ever since the fire.
Sam pulled out his phone and slyly pointed it at the two where they’d bent their heads together to convene on how to best approach the task of getting the mouse through the maze and to the coveted cheese. He turned the flash off and took the picture, smiling when it turned out pretty good despite his horrible photography skills. He’d even gotten Dean’s little hand gripping his blue crayon as tight as it could, and Castiel’s gently grasping the green.
He was less amused when the server brought out two very adult-sized burgers and their equally (and almost impossibly) large milkshakes. Sam ordered his usual salad with added chicken and a tall glass of apple juice (“because you’re weird, Sammy”) and the three began to dig in. Dean like a pig, Cas like a debutante, and Sam like a parent who was so completely done with this day. He made some small-talk with the waitress for lack of anything better to do, all the “hey how’s the weather, been busy, you have problems? that must be tough” crap he had to say to pretty much everyone to seem like he wasn’t completely maladjusted. It occurred to him that this girl was probably the one who reigned in Dean and Cas and focused them on the placemat in the minute it had taken him to recover from Dean’s shin kick and walk in, and he decided to drum up a bit more energy for her since she had been so helpful to him. And besides, working the graveyard shift sucked whether it was literal or figurative.
Dean and Cas had completely consumed their milkshakes, and were bouncing on their toes with their hands out for quarters. Well, Dean was wanting quarters... Cas must have thought it was another human thing he could copy. Sam looked down from his conversation with the waitress to fish four quarters out of each of his pockets, handing them out evenly to the boys who ran off in the right direction under Dean’s guidance and were soon hooping and fluttering around the claw machine.
Castiel was surprisingly skilled with the machine, pulling up a squishable-looking puppy and bringing it over while Dean had his turn at the machine. He set the stuffed animal on the edge of the table and blinked up at Sam, pushing it over a few inches until it was sitting right beside his plate. Sam just smiled and picked the dog up by the “scruff,” setting it in the seat beside him and giving Cas his thanks. He was interrupted by Dean bounding up with some kind of...well, Sam wasn’t entirely sure what it was. It was pink, and fuzzy, and had little iridescent white wings and a shiny gold plush halo on it, and googly eyes. It didn’t really look like something Dean would go for over, say, a toy car.
His concern over Dean’s momentary character lapse was ended by his brother climbing up into the booth with his puffball prize, grabbing the steak knife from beside Sam’s plate, and promptly sawing the halo off its fluffy pink head.
Ah, that was more like it.
Dean dropped the puff in the booth and climbed back down with the halo, jamming it down on Castiel’s head much to Sam’s amusement. The angel’s little face turned a noticeable shade of pink, but he didn’t remove the metallic plush from his now even messier nest of dark hair.
They all piled back into the car, this time with the boys in the back seat and Sam’s new dog riding shotgun, and Sam thought the night had turned out pretty well after all. Within minutes he heard light snoring from the back, and when he chanced a look over his shoulder was greeted with the sight of Dean and Cas sound asleep, curled up together with the little black wings draped over them.
It was tempting to drive through the night and let Bobby handle the kids when they finally made it to Sioux Falls, but Sam knew from experience that it was better to work with kids’ sleep schedules than against them. So, he pulled over an hour or so later and got a motel room, gently carrying the boys inside one at a time and tucking them in before calling it a night himself.
The next afternoon found them rolling into Sioux Falls without much fanfare, other than Dean having tried to pick up a dead possum from the side of the road and Castiel’s attempt to lecture a pamphlet-pusher on “the true meaning of the love of God.” So, it had actually been a bit of a rough morning. But Sam was strangely okay with that; it seemed like every day that passed got a little easier, the pair’s shenanigans a little more endearing and a bit less annoying.
He pulled up the drive and parked in front of Bobby’s, barely having turned the Impala off before the boys were out the door and running inside. He got out and followed them with a sigh, wondering whether or not Bobby would have them at gunpoint when he got in there. What he found instead brought back memories and made him smile: Bobby was standing there in the kitchen, telling Dean and Cas to sit down so they could eat their lunch. He’d made them sandwiches, and when Dean requested that the crusts be cut off the old man didn’t even roll his eyes before complying.
It occasionally occurred to him that Bobby had never had children of his own, but that he’d sometimes been more of a father to him and Dean than John ever had...and now, for the moment, he was getting the chance to do it again. Sam supposed that if he’d ever had kids, Bobby would have been a fantastic grandpa, and the evidence of that was right before his eyes. For being a self-proclaimed mean old drunk, Bobby Singer was great with kids.
Later, when the boys were asleep in the second bedroom and Sam was sitting in Bobby’s study having a beer, he thought about the whole situation. Those witches had been aging their victims until they died, but had instead de-aged Dean and Castiel. He had to wonder why, particularly given that it was basically their dying act. It was a completely different spell, more than a few words changed from the original, and oddly specific given that it had reduced one man’s age by about twenty-five years and the other’s by what was probably several millennia. Sam took a swig of his drink and thought about it for a while, absentmindedly watching Bobby do research on re-aging the two.
“Hey,” he began, leaning forward in his chair. “Would it be a bad thing if we just didn’t address the issue for now?” What he was talking about was crazy - the world was literally going to Hell, and they needed Dean and Cas to help them prevent that...but could a few weeks, or months, of him going solo hurt? He took Bobby’s raised eyebrow for the not-rejection that it was. “All I’m saying is, who says they have to grow up tomorrow, or the next day? We can let them be kids for a while, Bobby...and that’s the best gift I think anyone could give them. It’s something they’ve never had before. Normalcy, as weird as it feels to say it under these circumstances.”
The old man shut his book with a sigh, taking off his hat and running a hand through his thinning hair.
“We’ll give ‘em a little while...” he grumbled, though there was a certain light in his eyes that Sam could swear spelled actual happiness. “God knows they deserve it.”
Fandom: Supernatural
Genre: Family, Friendship
Pairing: Destiel if you squint
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language, insufferable mini!Dean
Summary: I wrote a kid!fic about Dean and Cas and Sam and one hellish road trip. It's based off a picture.
Okay, what the ever-loving fuck?
Sam didn’t believe what he was seeing. He honestly didn’t believe it. A few minutes ago they’d been ganking some witches, and now he was standing in front of two very surly-looking children.
One of those children was wearing a leather jacket, and the other was wearing a trench coat.
“Uh, Dean? Cas?” he asked cautiously, taking a step toward the now-children and crouching so he’d be on their level.
“Sammy? What the hell is going on?” he asked in a voice that Sam hadn’t heard in years, a voice that was a good octave higher than it had been minutes ago and that had Sam biting his lips to avoid laughing his ass off. Fortunately he didn’t have to reply because Cas seemed to have it covered.
“We appear to have become children, Dean,” the tiny angel said in an unmistakably sour tone. Sam was still trying not to laugh; Cas’s vocal change was even funnier than Dean’s, possibly because he sounded so adorably soft-spoken as opposed to his usual gravelly voice.
Sam pulled out his cellphone and made to dial Bobby, but decided to access his phone’s camera first. Seriously, this moment needed to be preserved for posterity. Castiel looked up from where he’d been staring at the ground, and Dean just glared as the camera flashed. With the picture saved - possibly to be made his wallpaper later - Sam dialed their mentor.
“Hey, Bobby... We’ve got a bit of a situation here. The witches are dead, the town should be all clear now, but it’s about Dean and Castiel. Um... They’re sort of kids. Like, real ones - tiny hands and adorable but kinda creepy faces and everything.” He waited while the older hunter laughed (yeah, he was so gonna have to send Bobby the picture later) and finally caught his breath in order to tell him to get their “little idjit asses” back to South Dakota so he could take a look at them and fix this.
“Will do, Bobby. Thanks.” He hung up and sighed, running a hand through his hair as he stood and took a step back to assess the situation. He was going to have to get two miniaturized asshats to travel peacefully with him all the way from Olympia to Sioux Falls.
Was it illegal to drug children if they weren’t actually children?
Sam ushered Cas and Dean into the Impala through the driver’s side, wanting them to stay in the front seat so he could break up any fighting that might occur. (Oh, who was he kidding...he was still young enough to remember that kids and long car rides never ended well. Ever.) Castiel just stared out the window like he was seeing the world for the first time, and Dean sulked in between them because he should be the one driving.
An hour later, no more, and Sam was pulling into a Babies-R-Us and practically dragging his brother and the angel inside by the hands. He ignored Dean trying to pull away so he could look at the monster truck toys and finally got them to the aisle where they sold kiddie carriers and similar items. He picked up a package that showed a kid wearing a bright red backpack-style harness and handed it to the more well-behaved of his two “children,” walking back to the front of the store while Dean whined about wanting to find the aisle with all the “cool cars you can drive around.” The cashier tittered at him, undoubtedly amused by Dean’s making faces at Castiel who looked just as puzzled as ever.
As soon as they left the store, Sam slipped the harness on Dean. He put both kids in the car and drove away, praying that they made it to the halfway point before his brother could drive him completely insane.
Getting a motel room while holding onto a leash that was connected to a small child proved to be even weirder than getting a hotel room with your man-sized brother whom people assumed was your gay lover. The lady in the office raised her eyebrow at Sam, who was busy trying to dig in his wallet for a stolen credit card while cradling a droopy-looking Cas in one arm and keeping Dean reigned in with his leash which was wrapped around the wrist belonging to his wallet-searching hand.
He finally managed to get a room with two singles and guided Dean toward it, rolling his eyes and handing his brother the room key (who let out an exuberant “hell yeah!” because he got to open the door before walking in and setting Cas down on the nearest bed. The angel crawled up toward the pillow and flopped down with a yawn, curling up on top of the blanket as if to sleep. Sam put a squirming Dean down from where he’d been unleashing him and walked over, sitting on the edge of the bed and touching the little angel’s shoulder. Heh. Little angel.
He helped Cas out of his coat and tie - his clothes were so tiny now - and handed him a T-shirt from Dean’s duffel. Speak of the devil, his brother emerged from the bathroom complaining about the height of the toilet and wearing another of his T-shirts. He started toward the free bed, but Sam glared and pointed to the wide open space beside Cas.
“I’ve already gotten weird looks from the desk chick, Dean. There’s no way we’re sharing a bed. Now lay down and go to sleep.”
Dean gave him a sullen look, but climbed into bed and jerked the covers out from under the fully changed Castiel so he could properly cover them both. Satisfied that Dean wasn’t going to start jumping on the bed any time soon, Sam kicked off his shoes and flopped down on his own bed to get some rest.
The next morning came way too soon, Sam decided as he felt a pair of bony knees digging into his chest. He felt little fingers poking at his forehead, and opened his eyes to see Castiel staring down at him like he was some kind of test subject. He glanced around, seeing Dean standing arms crossed beside his bed, waiting for Castiel to complete his analysis.
“Well?” Dean asked, obviously impatient. Castiel just poked Sam in the forehead again and the only normal-sized member of their party realized what he was trying to do.
“I’m powerless,” Cas said, and the pout on his tiny face almost made up for the fact that his knees were doing serious damage to his ribs. Sam grabbed the kid and lifted him off, setting him down beside Dean who was staring at Sam like he’d personally broken his angel.
“Look,” Sam said and shook his head, “Could you guys just, y’know, get dressed and ready to go? You’re creeping me out with your little eyes.”
Sam gathered their belongings and packed the trunk, returning to put Dean back on his leash before leading the boys out into the world once more.
He walked ahead of Dean and Cas, not worried in the least about their ability to blend in until he overheard the following exchange going on behind him:
"It's almost too bright out..."
"Suck it up, Cas."
"Please stop poking me, Dean."
"Dean, sto--choo!"
"... Whoa, cool."
Sam was almost afraid to turn around, but from the silence he knew something had to be going on and he needed to stop it. So he turned around slowly, trying and failing to prepare himself for what he’d find.
Castiel had wings.
They were tiny, black, fluffy little things that looked like they were right out of a Party City catalog. Sam tried not to laugh as he watched the exchange happening between Dean and Cas; his brother was awestruck, eyes wide as he reached out and tugged at one of the fluffy new appendages. Castiel, on the other hand, looked downright ashamed. His face was a bright pink, eyes downcast as he tried to pull away from Dean’s inspection. Before Sam could pull Dean out of reach, his tugging had agitated Cas to the point that violence seemed to be his best option. The angel reached out and shoved Dean, who landed on his ass and looked up at Sam as if he was the one supposed to mediate this exchange.
“Jesus...” Sam groaned. It really was like dealing with two children. Granted, Dean was like a giant man-child without the interference of witches, but now he had the pint-sized cuteness to make his behavior a little more understandable. And Sam knew he really didn’t need that sort of encouragement.
He supposed Castiel’s excuse was that he had always been socially awkward and now had less physical presence (and a lot less power) to make it seem okay that he had no clue how to deal with other people.
“Cas, we don’t push people. Dean, get your ass in the car and stop messing with his wings.”
“But they’re cool--”
“They’re awful. They’re tiny--”
“They’re awesome, Cas. And fluffy.”
“They aren’t even my wings, Dean. It’s part of the enchantment.”
Their time on the road passed much the same way, with Sam occasionally considering putting one of them in the back seat so he wouldn’t have to keep reaching over and breaking up their most recent fight. But then he figured that if he was to put Dean in the back seat it would give him a lot more room to bounce around and poke at Cas, and if he was to put Cas in the back it would only encourage Dean to turn around and make trouble that way. The only solution short of sleeping pills would be to put Dean in the trunk, but he really didn’t want his pint-sized brother angry and that close to an arsenal.
Sam had thought about having kids once. Back when he was shopping for rings, thinking of proposing to Jess, he thought about how happy they could be with kids of their own. It was the kind of life he’d only ever dreamed of having for himself: a job with a nice firm, a house somewhere in a quiet suburban community, a beautiful wife, and a couple of kids.
This trip was making him rethink the “couple of kids” part.
They pulled off the road when Dean started getting unbearable and parked in front of a diner, Sam leading Cas with one hand and holding tight to Dean’s leash with the other. They sat down in a booth in their usual manner, Dean and Sam on one side and Cas on the other, and the waitress offered them a brilliant smile when she came over to take their order.
“You have such adorable boys,” she said as she regarded Dean and Cas with a look that Sam knew as the Cheek-Pinching Stare. Sam thought it best not to say “they aren’t my kids” and instead just smiled back and thanked her for the compliment, ordering a salad for himself, bacon cheeseburger sliders for Dean, and macaroni and cheese for Castiel. The three ate pretty quietly, with only Castiel’s occasional sigh at what Sam guessed was Dean kicking him under the table to break the silence.
“So, Cas... Those aren’t your wings?” he asked in as sensitive a tone as possible, since the angel seemed a little touchy about the black balls of fluff sticking out of his back.
Castiel looked disgusted as he stabbed at his mac and cheese. “No,” he said sulkily, “my wings are still on another plane. These tiny things aren’t even useful for flying.”
Sam was about to comment on the angel’s size issues when another thought struck him as more important. “So if they aren’t your wings, why do they move like they’re real?”
He was fixed with a reluctantly patient gaze as Castiel seemed to gauge whether or not that question deserved a response, but the angel’s eyes returned to his food as he spoke.
“Just because they aren’t mine doesn’t mean they aren’t real. I can feel them,” he shot a look at Dean, “and I can move them of my own free will.” Sam nodded at the explanation, pinched Dean’s arm for sticking his tongue out at Cas, and dug into his food. They still had a long way to go to get to Sioux Falls, and he wanted to make this trip as short as possible.
Of course, no road trip with children was complete without the customary hourly bathroom stops, and Sam was really grateful for once that Dean had a loud mouth and no filter; he made requests for himself and for Castiel whenever the angel got a little too squirmy for Dean’s liking. Sam was pretty sure Cas had never had to use the bathroom before, and he didn’t want to think about how that conversation went the first time the “kids” hopped out of the car and off into the bushes.
That was another thing: Dean just would not stop touching Cas. It was like watching a little boy with a girl he liked, and Sam tried to discourage the metaphorical pigtail-pulling as much as possible, even going so far as to give the two the “violence is not an acceptable way to show affection” speech. But Dean was sneaky, and sometimes he wouldn’t know until his brother was shoved forcefully into his side that anything had even transpired between the two. After a little while they just sat there staring at each other, which Sam supposed was a comforting level of normal considering the circumstances.
After checking in with Bobby and telling him they were just six or so hours out, Sam finally caved to Dean’s demands for food and pulled into the nearest roadside diner. It hadn’t occurred to him that he had possibly had it easy so far on this trip. He thought there was no easy when it came to dealing with Dean and Cas, particularly in child form.
Never had he been so wrong.
This time it was Dean who pushed Cas, and the angel either had absolutely no mojo or was surprised by the attack because he fell right back on his ass and looked up at Dean like a kicked puppy. Dean didn’t have the chance to look remorseful, because Sam had had it and reached down to scoop Cas up into his arms.
“Dammit Dean, behave yourself!” he scolded, cradling a pouting Castiel in one arm and holding tight to his brother’s leash.
“You can’t tell me what to do! Now gimme back my angel!” Dean yelled in reply, starting to tug on the leash as if to pull it from Sam’s hands. God, he hated kids. He hated kids so much. He hated Dean as a kid. He held on tight to the leash and tried not to be too embarrassed by the staring bystanders as he responded.
“Dean, Cas isn’t a commodity. And you can have him back when you -- ow, stop that!” He winced at the pain shooting through his shin, wondering how on Earth such tiny feet could do such damage. He slowly let Cas down as he went to rub at the soon to be bruised area, watching with a groan as Dean took the angel’s hand and ran off toward the door of the diner, leash trailing uselessly behind them.
Of course Cas didn’t even spare a glance over his shoulder to check if Sam was okay.
When Sam finally made it in a minute later, Dean and Cas were sitting side by side in a booth and working on one of the kids’ menus together, no pushing or shoving or wing-pulling involved. Sam breathed a sigh of relief and mentally added five percent to the server’s tip as he walked over and flopped down in the seat opposite them.
It was cute, really. He’d never gotten to see Dean be a kid, even when they were both younger. Dean had been the one who had to grow up right away; he was never allowed any of the trappings of childhood nor the innocence that often came with youth, and that made Sam’s heart ache in a really weird way. At least he’d had the chance to grow up for a few years not knowing what their dad did, and at least he’d been able to walk away and live his own life for a while. Dean had never had any of that...he’d been living in the shadow of John Winchester ever since the fire.
Sam pulled out his phone and slyly pointed it at the two where they’d bent their heads together to convene on how to best approach the task of getting the mouse through the maze and to the coveted cheese. He turned the flash off and took the picture, smiling when it turned out pretty good despite his horrible photography skills. He’d even gotten Dean’s little hand gripping his blue crayon as tight as it could, and Castiel’s gently grasping the green.
He was less amused when the server brought out two very adult-sized burgers and their equally (and almost impossibly) large milkshakes. Sam ordered his usual salad with added chicken and a tall glass of apple juice (“because you’re weird, Sammy”) and the three began to dig in. Dean like a pig, Cas like a debutante, and Sam like a parent who was so completely done with this day. He made some small-talk with the waitress for lack of anything better to do, all the “hey how’s the weather, been busy, you have problems? that must be tough” crap he had to say to pretty much everyone to seem like he wasn’t completely maladjusted. It occurred to him that this girl was probably the one who reigned in Dean and Cas and focused them on the placemat in the minute it had taken him to recover from Dean’s shin kick and walk in, and he decided to drum up a bit more energy for her since she had been so helpful to him. And besides, working the graveyard shift sucked whether it was literal or figurative.
Dean and Cas had completely consumed their milkshakes, and were bouncing on their toes with their hands out for quarters. Well, Dean was wanting quarters... Cas must have thought it was another human thing he could copy. Sam looked down from his conversation with the waitress to fish four quarters out of each of his pockets, handing them out evenly to the boys who ran off in the right direction under Dean’s guidance and were soon hooping and fluttering around the claw machine.
Castiel was surprisingly skilled with the machine, pulling up a squishable-looking puppy and bringing it over while Dean had his turn at the machine. He set the stuffed animal on the edge of the table and blinked up at Sam, pushing it over a few inches until it was sitting right beside his plate. Sam just smiled and picked the dog up by the “scruff,” setting it in the seat beside him and giving Cas his thanks. He was interrupted by Dean bounding up with some kind of...well, Sam wasn’t entirely sure what it was. It was pink, and fuzzy, and had little iridescent white wings and a shiny gold plush halo on it, and googly eyes. It didn’t really look like something Dean would go for over, say, a toy car.
His concern over Dean’s momentary character lapse was ended by his brother climbing up into the booth with his puffball prize, grabbing the steak knife from beside Sam’s plate, and promptly sawing the halo off its fluffy pink head.
Ah, that was more like it.
Dean dropped the puff in the booth and climbed back down with the halo, jamming it down on Castiel’s head much to Sam’s amusement. The angel’s little face turned a noticeable shade of pink, but he didn’t remove the metallic plush from his now even messier nest of dark hair.
They all piled back into the car, this time with the boys in the back seat and Sam’s new dog riding shotgun, and Sam thought the night had turned out pretty well after all. Within minutes he heard light snoring from the back, and when he chanced a look over his shoulder was greeted with the sight of Dean and Cas sound asleep, curled up together with the little black wings draped over them.
It was tempting to drive through the night and let Bobby handle the kids when they finally made it to Sioux Falls, but Sam knew from experience that it was better to work with kids’ sleep schedules than against them. So, he pulled over an hour or so later and got a motel room, gently carrying the boys inside one at a time and tucking them in before calling it a night himself.
The next afternoon found them rolling into Sioux Falls without much fanfare, other than Dean having tried to pick up a dead possum from the side of the road and Castiel’s attempt to lecture a pamphlet-pusher on “the true meaning of the love of God.” So, it had actually been a bit of a rough morning. But Sam was strangely okay with that; it seemed like every day that passed got a little easier, the pair’s shenanigans a little more endearing and a bit less annoying.
He pulled up the drive and parked in front of Bobby’s, barely having turned the Impala off before the boys were out the door and running inside. He got out and followed them with a sigh, wondering whether or not Bobby would have them at gunpoint when he got in there. What he found instead brought back memories and made him smile: Bobby was standing there in the kitchen, telling Dean and Cas to sit down so they could eat their lunch. He’d made them sandwiches, and when Dean requested that the crusts be cut off the old man didn’t even roll his eyes before complying.
It occasionally occurred to him that Bobby had never had children of his own, but that he’d sometimes been more of a father to him and Dean than John ever had...and now, for the moment, he was getting the chance to do it again. Sam supposed that if he’d ever had kids, Bobby would have been a fantastic grandpa, and the evidence of that was right before his eyes. For being a self-proclaimed mean old drunk, Bobby Singer was great with kids.
Later, when the boys were asleep in the second bedroom and Sam was sitting in Bobby’s study having a beer, he thought about the whole situation. Those witches had been aging their victims until they died, but had instead de-aged Dean and Castiel. He had to wonder why, particularly given that it was basically their dying act. It was a completely different spell, more than a few words changed from the original, and oddly specific given that it had reduced one man’s age by about twenty-five years and the other’s by what was probably several millennia. Sam took a swig of his drink and thought about it for a while, absentmindedly watching Bobby do research on re-aging the two.
“Hey,” he began, leaning forward in his chair. “Would it be a bad thing if we just didn’t address the issue for now?” What he was talking about was crazy - the world was literally going to Hell, and they needed Dean and Cas to help them prevent that...but could a few weeks, or months, of him going solo hurt? He took Bobby’s raised eyebrow for the not-rejection that it was. “All I’m saying is, who says they have to grow up tomorrow, or the next day? We can let them be kids for a while, Bobby...and that’s the best gift I think anyone could give them. It’s something they’ve never had before. Normalcy, as weird as it feels to say it under these circumstances.”
The old man shut his book with a sigh, taking off his hat and running a hand through his thinning hair.
“We’ll give ‘em a little while...” he grumbled, though there was a certain light in his eyes that Sam could swear spelled actual happiness. “God knows they deserve it.”